Description:
The seminal work of Jean Cayrol has experienced a revival in the French-speaking world since his death in 2005. Concentrationary Art represents the first translation into English of Cayrol's two essays on concentrationary art, as well as the first book-length study of his theory.
Brief description:
Griselda Pollock is Professor of Social & Critical Histories of Art and Director of the Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory & History at the University of Leeds. Her many publications include After-Affects/After-Images: Trauma and Aesthetic Transformation in the Virtual Feminist Museum (2012) and Charlotte Salomon in the Theatre of Memory (2018). She co-edited Concentrationary Cinema: Aesthetics as Political Resistance in Alain Resnais's Night and Fog (2012).
Review Quotes:
"The volume is a true labour of love, makes for fascinating reading, and at last offers us Cayrol in English translation...The articles take us on a fascinating journey in which Cayrol's idea of the concentrationary and the figure of Lazarus are explored as theories with their own histories...These analyses across different artistic forms and historical periods demonstrate how fertile Cayrol's ideas were." - Modern Language Review
"This is a politically urgent volume and an excellent resource for anyone studying the cultural or representational legacies of the concentration camp 'as both event and form', its (post)traumatic manifestations or memory in the contemporary world." - Textual Practice
"Concentrationary Art is invariably intellectually exhilarating to read, and is hard to put down. It puts forward a new and cogent aesthetic theory in its analysis not only of the wartime 'concentrationary', but also of the role of the survivor in a post-war world where traces of the same phenomena persist unseen in the everyday." - Sue Vice, University of Sheffield
"This is an authoritative, clear, and insightful book. The contributions to this excellent volume offer a novel take on the concentrationary and provide a wider understanding of post-Holocaust art." - Kathryn Robson, Newcastle University